This guide consists of notes and terms relevant to the storyworld of Monsters of Katakot. There are MILD SPOILERS here. For more casual author’s commentary about the novel, see Scholia: The Monsters of Katakot, which does contain spoilers.
TABLE OF CONTENTS:
Dramatis Personae • Glossary •
DRAMATIS PERSONAE:
The Protagonists:
Kurou Rukh: The 35-year-old, plainskin state executioner of si’Urai, one of the infamous Five Families of executioners whose bloodline was genmarked before the Stillness with foreign blue eyes. He lives with his mother, Vidya, in a small house off Lamentation Square, and works with his young nephew and apprentice Jaiy Pujari. Kurou has one sister, Kushal, who lives in another town and of course married within the Families. His hard-handed father, Raif Rukh, has been dead for years.
Laile Sen: An 18-year-old plainskin initiate in the Great Temple; she has passed her first two Scrutinies and is intent on passing her last this year so that she can become a full sacerdote. She is an orphaned criminal’s daughter — Kurou hanged her father, Ashok Sen, years ago — and her acceptance into the temple school is a progressive social experiment by Prelate Purohit.
Arihant Adhikari: The 64-year-old honormarked governor of Iyer and lord mayor of Katakot, Arihant has been mayor of the capital city for about 40 years. He has an estranged wife, a 16-year-old daughter, Karishma, and he dotes on his blue-and-yellow pet dhampala, Mahir.
Professor Cáo Ying: An anatomy professor that Kurou and Trishana Sha both worked with at Sarnat University.
Plainskin Characters:
PRIMARY:
Jin “Grinner” Keit (“rai of thieves”): The cocky and irreverent head of Katakot’s loose and disorganized criminal underworld, Grinner was once a defiant hero to the poor until he kidnapped the Sarin heir last year. He released the boy unharmed when the Sarins refused to pay ransom, but the boy killed himself shortly thereafter, and it’s left a taint on Grinner’s reputation. Grinner is also Arihant’s old roommate from Sarnat University.
Suhail Mir: A young university student with rusty streaks in his dark hair who leads the political opposition to Shivrant’s execution.
SECONDARY:
Halder Barak (captain): head of the Black Keep (a prison) and Katakot’s constabulary; Kurou’s boss. He’s a crusty old vet with a limp and a cane, and he gets along well with Kurou.
Bha: Morgue director of Valkir Hospital.
Dhir Bose and Little Hara: Two of Mir’s thugs.
Bijay, Ila, Talib, Kit, Esha: Members of Arihant’s household staff.
Dev: A young initiate at the temple school, and Laile’s friend. He’s behind her in his studies.
Ratan Falk (magister, Great Temple): A thin “blackrobe” (magister) sacerdote who teaches at the temple school. Laile considers him to be her nemesis.
Malik Gotos and Li: Mariya Mitra’s butler and, later, clerk, and one of her bodyguards.
Ihsan: Proprietor of the Bitter Cup, the bar off Lamentation Square across from Kurou Rukh’s house.
Isha (captain): One of General Touhma’s men.
The Karanjits: Basu and Suresh are the Karanjit brothers; their dead father was Venkat and their mother is Haifa. The Karanjits take care of the Katakot cemetery and run its crematoria.
Lina: Daughter of the barkeep at the Spotted Pteryx.
Jatin Maitra, the Lord Shivrant: Backed a tax uprising and dared to speak against the rai in the Assembly, shortly before it was dismissed. Cousin to Preceptor Cale Nayar.
Cale Nayar (preceptor, Great Temple): A handsome “saffron robe” (preceptor) sacerdote who teaches at the temple school. Cousin to the condemned Jatin Maitra, the Lord Shivrant.
Amrit Pannikar: Historical figure, a thanaturge and head of the Wicked Reform in si’Lhadji. Manipulated Raina Menachary but was finally overthrown by members of the Great Temple given permission to act by si’Lhadji’s Hymqari SharmaChandra.
Indira Rayen: The attractive lead broadcaster of Kata Radio.
Samderiya: An older technician at Kata Radio.
Jayashri Sarin: A wellborn banker’s daughter and temple initiate. Her brother killed himself last year after his family refused to ransom him when he was kidnapped by Grinner.
Taim Scandha: One of the thanaturges who killed Rai Bhattacharyya’s two sons for political reasons.
Trishana Sha: A university student and anatomy artist who worked with Kurou.
Shiv and Craps; Bhanu; Tanda; the Pox: Thieves in Grinner’s pack.
Warud: A minor noble who is seen with Miss Mitra.
The Honormarked:
PRIMARY:
Dawa Gerent (magister/invoker): Rai Bhattacharyya’s invoker, honormarked with blue scales. He’s facing death with lots of painkillers and a grim determination to work until the end. He’s a friend of Prelate Purohit, who provides him with medicinal drugs. He has a bitter sense of humor.
Mariya (Maya Shahi) Mitra: Kurou’s lover from childhood, a ruthlessly ambitious but beautiful young woman who was born a guttersnipe but has lied and slept her way up into noble circles. She has copper-and-green honormarks.
Nirav Purohit (prelate & preceptor): Honormarked with silver and violet scales, the elderly head of the Great Temple of Katakot is a kind but stern man. He was convinced by the former avatar of Nathapala to bring Laile Sen, a bright girl but a criminal’s daughter, into the temple school as a social experiment in breaking down class lines among sacerdotes, and he monitors her progress with interest.
Vasu Touhma, the Lord Tirimiry: The general of Rai Bhattacharyya’s army and a military hero, he’s a brusque, work-oriented loyalist to the core.
SECONDARY:
Lady Amatya: Decapitated during the second riots.
Nishita Arya’Nathapala: The hymqar Nathapala’s avatar at the novel’s start, a condemned spree killer. His genetic reinscription is too extensive and cruel to be considered honormarking; he has the usual avatar golden eyes but it also covered with black scales and has a predator’s fangs and claws. He’s been given extra height and muscle mass as well.
Chander Bhattacharyya (rai of Ojhasu si’Urai): The extensively honormarked ruler of si’Urai, covered in jewel-colored scales. His wife is long since dead and his two sons, Amit and Doran, died last year on the battle front as a result of thanaturgic damage wrought by the Scandhas. His mind has slipped, resulting in extreme paranoia that has led him to disband the Sovereign Assembly and see treason everywhere. People have noticed, and they aren’t happy, but for some reason Nathapala hasn’t declared the rai unfit to rule. His honormarked brother is Makut Battacharyya, the Lord Ara.
Lady Mukerji: Arihant’s neighbor, a dignified old lady who won’t let the rabble chase her out of her home.
Otanu: Rai of si’Morvi, the neighboring state. He has tried to invade si’Urai a few times but was turned back by General Touhma. He keeps a close eye on his neighbor. si’Morvi’s hymqar is Rajendra.
The Inhuman:
Alim: A bucket of pre-Stillness, military-grade artificial living intelligent matter.
“Grandmother”: A tulpa living in the Rukh tomb. It flickers and has a stutter from digital degradation. Kurou turns to “Grandmother” for wise counsel.
Nathapala: The hymqar (overseer/defender) of si’Urai and a member of the yakṣas.
GLOSSARY:
Nota bene: The term yakṣa is used throughout for noēsaurs, because that’s the term used in Katakot, but it’s not a globally adopted term.
Alim: Artificially Intelligent Living Matter. Often used as a bioweapon during the pre-Stillness Wars.
Avatar: A reinscripted human capable of sharing mind and body with one of the yakṣas. Typically only yakṣas that must interact regularly with humans, such a those in charge of a human-populated protectorate, ask for avatars. Conventions around avatar-yakṣa relations vary widely from place to place. In Katakot, the avatar is usually a reinscribed criminal offered the position as a chance for redemption. Katakot’s avatars keep their given name and adopt al-Nathapala instead of a surname.
Avialan: A broad term for winged saurs (mostly enantiornithes and microraptors). Examples include rukhs, mahakali, rahonas, and the tiny zhaoi.
Caretaker: The yakṣa protector of a territory; e.g., Caretaker Nathapala.
Ceradha: A large, quadrapedal saur. May be used by humans to pull heavy loads.
Chirate: An alien/antidimensional energy, from the word “chiral.” The chirate can be summoned and manipulated to affect this world; it is primarily corrosive/degenerative and slowly destroys the body of the person who summons and channels it. No yakṣa or lateni has been known to wield it.
Clear Nations: A regional term for inhabited lands that the yakṣas have declared essentially free of dangerous phages, nanites, and mutagens.
Dasa / Devoted: A locally adopted term for a peaceful, meditative sect of humans and lateni who work side-by-side with the yakṣas to develop, maintain and protect the biosphere. The Dasa are reinscribed to communicate directly with yakṣas and speak little, often preferring to communicate in saurspeak. The Dasa adopt modes of dress and markings that make them instantly recognizable and are generally treated with the same respect accorded most religious ascetics by everyday citizens.
Dhampala: Bipedal saurs that have more or less taken the place of dogs (now extinct) in human society. Like dogs, humans like to breed them to various sizes and colorations, usually with the assistance of the Dasa, who ensure such variations are genetically fit.
Druk Initiative: Part of the pre-Stillness Tadzong Project, the group that initiated the development of the noēsaurs.
Ghala/ghali: Scavenger saurs, often found in sewers in the city; widely considered to be vermin.
Genmark: Genetic or generational marking, a particular kind of artificially constructed mutation passed down through generations.
Halāhala Biophage: A pre-Stillness constructed plague designed to target and kill all warm-blooded life; named after a terrible poison from Hindu mythology.
Honormarks: A regional tradition in which those whom a caretaker wishes to honor for an accomplishment receives a limited cosmetic reinscription that adorns their bodies with beautiful markings consisting of living reptile scale. Those wearing honormarks are considered worthy of respect regardless of their birthrank. Some plainskin gang members tattoo honormarks on their skin. Honormarked individuals are sometimes referred to derogatively as “scalies.”
Invocation: Use of the chirate; typically, invocation is understood to involve an invoker channeling the chirate through their own body, sacrificing their health for power. When they channel the chirate through another living being, it’s described as thanaturgy.
Katakot: The city setting of this novel, capital of Ojhasu si’Urai. Katakot was built in a wide caldera and protected by a giant dome during the pre-Stillness wars. That dome has long since been shattered and the pieces carted off. Parts of the broken girders that had once supported the dome still circle the rim of the city and are festooned by generations of ragged prayer flags.
Lateni: One of the other successfully bioengineered saurian species that survived. Lateni are about 9’ long from beak to feathered tail and standing about 5’ high. Their wings were engineered to have clawlike three-fingered “hands,” extensions of the wing bones, capable of fine manipulation at the cost of flight. They have volunteered for hereditary genetic reinscriptions that make it easier for them to communicate with the yakṣas. Whether culturally or genetically, lateni seem to enjoy organized, detail-oriented work and often find employment as researchers, recordkeepers, bureaucrats, and — perhaps due to their social nature or a natural facility with languages — spokespeople and diplomats. Lateni and humans usually live side-by-side in peace.
Mesothermic Reinscription / Great Reinscription: The pre-Stillness emergency rewriting of the homo sapiens sapiens genetic code to avoid the Halāhala plague; although the human population was severely decimated by the plague, reinscription-related fatalities, and the plague’s aftermath, enough survived to slowly rebuild.
Nanite: Nanotechnology; most it was weaponized during the pre-Stillness Wars.
Nirmita: “Constructed” — Here, used to describe a nanite bracelet Kurou wears that contains part of the tulpa’s sentience and monitors his health, offering assistance where it can.
Noēsaurs: Genetically engineered archosaur biocomputers developed pre-Stillness as a reaction to the petroleum-destroying military nanotech that were wiping out humanity’s physical computers. Noēsaurs are largely based on saurs but include a number of other species’ genetic codes as well. Noēsaurs are mentally networked to each other and have, over generations, evolved lateni and humans to share in that network, although while this is an active and accepted reinscription in lateni, it is kept dormant in humans unless a human becomes an Avatar or requests to join a group such as the Devoted. In various countries, noēsaurs may be colloquially called chimeras, druk, lóng, and yakṣas. The original noēsaurs who helped develop the Mesothermic Reinscription were Chatura, Jitendra, Lungtok, Nathapala, Norbu, Rajendra, Sharma, and Yngynmu.
Ojhasu si’Urai: Nathapala’s protectorate, of which the city of Katakot is a part.
Placo oil: Oil harvested from the placodus saur, farmed for the purpose and used for inexpensive lighting.
Plainskin: A term used to describe humans who aren’t honormarked, when such differentiation is relevant. Since very few humans receive honormarks, this isn’t used often outside of large cities.
Phage: A pre-Stillness weapon designed to attack a certain element or series of elements; biophages, for example, that target certain types of life.
Proscribed Technology: Technologies forbidden by the yakṣas as being too destructive to be allowed back into circulation — most proscribed technologies are destroyed at once, although some humans suspect the yakṣas retain a significant number of these technologies for their own purposes.
Rai/Raina: Human ruler of Ojhasu si’Urai.
Reinscription: Rewriting of the genetic code, in whole or in part, using nanotechology.
Saur: A broad term for what are colloquially and inexactly known as dinosaurs, sometimes used to encompass other reptiles.
Saurspeak: The human term for the sign language lateni use to communicate with them. Humans can read certain signs, such as the placement of crest and tail feathers, but do not have good ways of reproducing them. Almost all humans choose to speak to lateni out loud, although saurspeak has been adopted as sign language for those who cannot, or are in situations where they should not, speak.
Singularity: A pre-Stillness transnational resistance group for posthumans resentful of the way humanity treated them.
Starihant/starihanti: Large, human-sized saurs used as watchdogs. They are difficult to tame and considered dangerous.
Stillness: The period after the Great Reinscription and the death of the world’s warm-blooded species.
Su / Sur / Surself: Pronouns adopted by most lateni in solidarity with the yakṣas, although unlike yakṣas, lateni are gonochoric and engage in sexual reproduction.
Temple of the Threefold Path: A major philosophical sect with religious trappings. One of its dominant teachings is to think beyond the binary — to always consider a “third” or “liminal” option or possibility.
Teratogenic Wars: A pre-Stillness series of constantly escalating biowars that ultimately ended with the release of the Halāhala biophage and the extinction of warm-blooded species across the earth, with a resulting collapse of the biosphere.
Thanaturgy: A form of invocation that involves an invoker channeling the chirate through another living being’s body; thanaturgy is almost always considered illegal and immoral.
Transcendent Oath: The oath, bound to their operating parameters, taken by the yakṣas to protect and restore the Earth’s biosphere. The original wording was “I solemnly bind myself, my life and my spirit, to this vow: that I shall treat humans and all other living creatures with respect and compassion; that I shall protect and preserve the environment regardless of geographical or political boundaries; that I shall nurture and honor biodiversity and ecological health; and that I and all of my species who come after me shall serve as guardians of this planet’s complex, interdependent, ever-changing and ever-precious environment and of the welfare of every sentient being who dwells within it.” This oath was
Tulpa: An artificially intelligent nanobot personality recording device. Tulpas were among the forms of posthumanity thought to have masterminded and released the Halāhala plague.
Utaha: Bipedal saurs large and strong enough to be used as riding mounts by humans; they are ridden using high wooden saddles.
Wastes: The regional term for those lands that are not yet clear of dangerous phages, nanites, mutagens, and weapons.
Xe / Xes / Xeself: Pronouns adopted by most yakṣas as a way of discouraging their gendering by humans with whom they interact.
Yakṣas: Locally adopted term for noēsaurs.